


Gilgamesh Idles, However

by solarpillar (solarwind)



Series: Enkidu didn't die [5]
Category: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1927590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarwind/pseuds/solarpillar





	Gilgamesh Idles, However

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sazandorable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazandorable/gifts).



In life, a man is full of water, the skin fragile and red water leaks and gushes when broken. In death, the water is gone, the skin hard and covers nothing but bones and dust. And bone is but dust, too.

Being buried under a river does not make a man more than dust, the water stays stranger and the mud but another layer of burial vaults. He had wished the river bed would embrace him as Enkidu once did, but in Irkalla he could neither feel the mud nor the beloved friend.

Gilgamesh can still hear the sound of water, the sweet water of Enki, the sweet source of Enkidu. Enkidu, he whispers the beloved name, Enkidu, but the sound is made of dust, his lungs no longer air but dust, and unlike words of airy breath, the word falls rather than rise, and cannot join the water above.

Another soul presents itself before Gilgamesh. Another pile of dust, mouth no longer speaking the language of wind. The language of dust is silent, thus the court is silent, much unlike the court of living men, much unlike the court of the Annunaki.

If Gilgamesh had a choice, he wound rather speak the language of water. A language full of movement and vigour. A living tongue, in which fish and leviathans sing to their deceased mother, to their brothers and sisters long lost in the sky.

They say the House of Waters is matched in splendour only by the Esagila, built by the Annunaki in praise of Marduk. A man who kills one's parents and rise to the throne would be a tyrant, but a god who does the same suffers no judgement, such the privilege of gods. A god who slays a god gains glory, but a man who slays a god is a criminal and punished. And the slain gods and beasts, bitter and sweet waters, spiteful Humbaba and mighty Bull of Heaven, do not become dust, do not idle in a land of endless stagnancy to slowly rot away, only trapped in their death, with no need for offerings or hope, a finished, baked tablet rather than a handful of clay barely-written, crushed and left to dry and crumble.

Tiamat may still weep rivers, but she is not dust, and she does not cling to a shadow of hope.

A man's life is a handful of wet dust. A god's story is flowing waters and blowing winds, shifting stones and living mud, burning altars and bleeding temples. When all slaves of Qingu's blood vanish from earth above, the waters will continue to moan their children's name, the ruins will continue to whisper the grandeur of gods, the shades of men will continue their simulacrum of a life in endless, looping fates, forever labouring for the glory of the gods. But the story of a man may not last so long. He wonders how long his will last, in these clay tablets and memories of men, in words passed from wise mothers to curious children.

In good, youthful life, the god of Gilgamesh was Shamash, who lives and dies endlessly through the dark tunnel of scorpion men. In foolishness, Gilgamesh has passed through the same path, his god his death chasing behind. In death, Gilgamesh no longer needs a god. The sun comes down to shine on the honoured and shower them with gifts, but what gifts can ease the eternity of the dead? An eternity, holding a hope that never will be fulfilled.

An eternity, without Enkidu or Ninsun, without anyone he loves.

Gilgamesh is envious of common men, who meet their beloved in death.


End file.
